All The Time in The World
by sconicnights1
Summary: A kid named Jake travels to a new world, finds a place to stay, and finds a new foe.


My name is Jake Zechron, and I am eight years old, I have sandy blond hair, blue-green eyes, and am about four feet tall. My grandpa Octavian has gray and white hair, green eyes, and is about five foot four. He is also coming over to tell me a story because I am sick and his stories always help cheer me up. He is driving over here right now, according to my mom, who has black hair like my grandpa and blue-green eyes like me. I can't wait for the story because it's new and it's supposed to be about his childhood, he says that he can travel to the future and that he did when he was in his high teens, but I don't believe him.

When I hear the knocks on the door signaling my grandpa being here, I get very jittery with excitement. From what I can hear of his footsteps, he walks into the living room and starts talking to my mom. Although I can't hear what they are saying, I am pretty sure they are talking about me. Grandpa walks into my room and sits down in the chair next to my bed. We have been sitting here for a few minutes in silence and so finally he says something,

"You ready for the story?" he asks in his old, raspy voice.

"Sure!" I say trying not to act weirded out. 

"Ok, here we go. It all started-", he starts, only to get interupted by my mom coming in and giving me some medicine for my fever. I glare at her back as she walks out of the room. "Ok, now, as long as I don't get interrupted again," he said loud enough for my mom to hear as she giggled and snorted while she walked to the kitchen to make dinner. He started again, "I found the machine in my garage when I was clearing it out to start my band, it looked like the ruddiest piece of crap that I had ever seen. My friend Ryan suggested to throw it away but it seemed to have some sort of importance to it, although I couldn't tell what it was I knew it would be important, but I didn't know what for."

"This doesn't seem to be getting anywhere Grandpa." I said out of boredness. Suddenly, I don't know how, he has a handwritten book in his hands and he offers it to me for reading. "What- how-?" I said in confusion.

"You read it then, if I'm not telling it good enough." he said, his tone made me a bit aggravated, so I took the book and started reading, although I still didn't know how it got there. He walked out with a look of satisfaction on his face as though he didn't want to read anyway. I opened the book to about where he stopped and read.

But I didn't know what for. I picked it up and brought it inside where I knew my sisters wouldn't touch it, even I hesitated when I picked up something that looked like a rusty metal bike tire with a few shiny black buttons on it. I decided that I would mess with it later after dinner.

When dinner came, I ate up quick and went to my room glad that nobody asked any questions or tried to stop me. But my father yelled,"Come back here and put your plate up young man! Right now or you're not getting dinner tomorrow." "Coming father." I yelled back. In the blink of an eye I was in my room and ready to find out what it was, but as soon as I got it out my mom came walking down the hallway, so I dashed it under my pillow before she came in.

"You don't have to-" but I was cut off by her singing me to bed. I am fourteen and didn't need that, but she did it because she knows I hate it. When she was done I was very happy and really hoped that nobody would come in and interrupt me again. So I called out to the hallway and said that I'm going to bed and that no one should bother me, there was no answer so I took it as a yes.

In the middle of the night I called my friend, Jake over to help me with it. It took me a while to wake him up and get him to come over at three in the morning. When he got over, I explained what happened, and he said, "I think it's useless, I'm going back ho..."

He paused as I grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the room. "You're not going anywhere until we figure out what this is and does." I replied.

"Fine, but can I at least get a snack, I'm really hungry… please? I haven't had anything for about five hours." Jack begged.

"If you get a snack than you have to be quiet about it because I don't want you waking up my parents. If they know you are here you and I are gonna have to clean the car and finish planting the garden without tools!" I replied.

"Dinner's ready!" my mom called from the kitchen.

"Coming!" I called through the hallway, it felt like I was in the book and I was living through it, but it was probably just because it was a really good book. It is still a mystery of how the book got into my grandpa's hands.

As I walked into the kitchen, I smelled my mom's delicious spaghetti. I loved her food; she is probably the best cook I've ever known, but she's also the only cook I've ever known. I sat down at the table and looked at my grandpa, and he looked at me. Once again we sat in silence as my mom got the spaghetti over to the table. To break the silence my mom asked how the book was, "It was good… I guess." I replied.

"I'm glad you liked it." Grandpa Octavian said. Although I still wonder how it got in his hands because it wasn't there when he walked in, and I'm one-hundred percent sure I didn't have something like that hiding somewhere in my room.

We're done eating so I'm reading to get back to reading the book, but my mom calls me back into the kitchen to take my medicine. "I think you shouldn't be reading that book Jake, it messes up your mind and you know how grandpa is, always predicting the future and telling stories about his younger life." My mom said to me as she shoved the medicine in my mouth. "I just don't think it's best for you at this age. At least wait till you're older… please." She finished.

"There's nothing wrong with reading a book, I mean, it can't be that bad, it's just a book after all." I argue, and that's not something I usually do.

"Fine, but you can't be reading it twenty-four seven."

"Ok." I finished on an awkward note. So I went back to my room, sat down on my bed, picked up the book, and started reading.

So he went off to the kitchen to grab a snack and came back with two granola bars and two glasses of milk. We had our snacks in silence and when we finished, we got back to working on the thing I found in the garage. "We've pressed all the buttons many times and we still can't figure out what it does or what it is." Jack said boringly.

" Maybe there is an order to it, like a special tune. Have you noticed that when you press a button, it makes a noise?" I replied. So I pressed all the buttons in an order that sounded a little like the word open."Do you think-" But I was cut off by the sound that the machine made. It sounded a little like police sirens, I thought it would wake my parents up but, surprisingly, it didn't. When it finally stopped being loud, I looked at it. Although it had changed from a circle to a blue-glowing square in the ground, i knew it was the same.

"Oh... my… gosh…" My friend and I both said in unison. Suddenly, I don't know what happened, but my best friend, of all people, pushed me into the blue-ish square. I plummeted into the darkness for what seemed like hours. As I fell I wondered what Jake was doing, was he laughing at me, did he jump in after me? I couldn't see anything for a long time.

Suddenly I landed face first on a floating white box, around me was a blue sky and silver buildings. I floated past a sign that said "Welcome to Angel's Domain, The Place Of Angels and everything bright!" Then, someone popped out of thin air. He had a bright set of fluffy white wings, attached to, what looked like, half man half bird. He had a classic halo above his head that even looked attached by a string. He had bird-like

I paused because I heard a noise, because the paged is ripped, and the rest of the pages are gone. The noise is my mom screaming because of my grandpa.

"Mom what are you doing?" I called out to her, "Call 911, quick!" I rushed my mom as much as possible until she got her phone and called the hospital, all while listening to my grandpa have a stroke. "I got the pills!" I yelled at my mom again. As I said that, I got a glass of water, his pills, and forced him to take them.

When he got to the hospital we had good news, he is alive and is going to live for at least another six or seven years, the nurse also said that he won't be able to talk for long periods of time anymore. I am relieved by this, but also sad that he can't be telling us stories anymore. We got home and ate sandwiches in silence without grandpa because he is still at the hospital. I'm going to bed thinking and hoping that grandpa is ok.

I wake up to the smell of another great dish served by my mom. It's going to be sausages, I just know it. The breakfast is very uneventful, and so is the following day. I have no book to read and no grandpa to tell me stories. I really hope he'll get back soon.

I beg my mom continuously to tell me a story, so she tells me the story of the three little pigs and it doesn't help at all. So I go back to sleep in my room, since it's summer break. I sleep for around seven hours and wake up for another meal, which is also uneventful.

Nothing happened at all the next couple days, except the fact that grandpa came home! We decided he could live with us because he was living alone and if he had another stroke, then he probably wouldn't get any medical attention fast enough to survive. We went swimming many times that week and he gave me a piece of paper that contained something important and old… it's the rest of the page for the book! I got so excited over this that I stopped the conversation I was having with my mom immediately so that I could read it in my room.

She called after me but I don't care, I can read a little more of the book, wich, sadly is a very little bit. I don't know if it's my imagination or not, but my grandpa winked at me and he hated it when people winked because that meant a secret and he hated secrets, but I wonder if he has his own big secret. I read the paper and this is what it says…

Eyes, and talons for feet. Immediately he started talking really fast, "You know, the halo is just for show, they make me wear it. Oh, and watch out for the centaurs, they're mean ones, or maybe it's just because I 'm an angel, hehe…" he talked for a long time until finally, there was an ear splitting noise, like a war horn.

That was the rest of the book that I could read, sadly.

…

Six years after I read that page, my Grandpa died. Now we are going to his funeral. We got there and there wasn't that many people. I went up to the box he's in to see him and there's an orb with a note saying to go to his house and to find my twin sister. That's a shocker because I didn't even know I had a sister, and no one else can see it for some reason. I take the orb and stuff it and the note in my pocket when nobody's looking. When we started singing, I burst out in tears that I had been holding in for six years. Since I was eight and now I am fourteen. I've been crying for at least an hour now.

When we got home I decided to just go to bed immediately. It's about four-o'clock in the evening but I don't feel like doing anything with my friends or watching tv. When I woke up I felt stronger, not like when you just wake up with a lot of energy stronger, like I went to the gym for at least three years stronger. So I punch my pillow and it feels normal. I go out to the kitchen and bang on the counter, and nothing unusual happens except my mom yells, "Hey, why'd you do that, you could have broke something! You can't just go around breaking things!" So, to match the mood I yell back,

"Fine!" Even though I don't feel like it. I go back to my room with a PB&J sandwich. I sleep again, but this time I don't feel like I got any stronger, I just feel like I did earlier. I wake up and it's about midnight, so I decide to take a bike ride to my grandpa's old house. He still owns it and didn't take everything out of it when he moved in with me and my mom.

The house still looks normal, but it's in a country neighborhood so there's no one nearby. I walk inside and the orb in my pocket ( I honestly forgot it was there) glows like it did when I picked it up for the first time. I walk into the basement and then the orb started glowing like crazy. Then, I found the machine described in the book. I got so excited, and I haven't been for a long time since my grandpa had a stroke. I got the machine and did the same order it said to in the book. Soon I was flying in the pitch darkness where I can't see my hand in front of my face.

In no time, I saw the brightness of the new place and saw the same sign I saw in the book. I started getting jittery again but then I remembered to look for a girl about my age that looked a lot like me, because she's my twin sister. I see nothing so far, but then the same angel (he's older, but it's the same one) popped up in front of me and started talking to me while I'm still getting over the bright skyscrapers and the flying angels in the distance. "Hi, my name is Zarell! I have come to introduce you…" he paused. "Haven't I seen you before?" he asked a little slower.

"No," I replied, "it was probably my grandpa."

"Well then. Just sit still while the box takes you where you need to go!" he finished. I'm guessing the box is what they call the thing I just dropped into. So I just waited, and before I know it I'm down on the ground and there's not very many people, just a few straggling centaurs giving me dirty looks as I passed. They look half man half horse. From the waist down they're is a horse with horse legs and everything down there. On the top half of them, they have a human head, neck, arms, and tourso. Looking for a sandy blond haired girl with blue-green eyes and is around the same age as me, I don't have very much success. So I walk by a store called "The place for everything", and go in.

There isn't much in there except a lot of empty shelves. I figure it's deserted so I start to walk out but someone calls to me by my name, Jake. I jumped at this and swivel around so fast that I can feel the wind move my hair around on my head. "I believe you have come for me to see what powers you have because of your crystal, Jake Zechron. Your grandpa said you would be here sometime soon. My name is Zandall if you ever see me again." he said in the calmest voice that I've ever heard.

"I-I guess," I stuttered, "how did you know my g-grandpa." I said, still stuttering a little bit, considering the fact that my grandpa was actually here before.

"Well, let me see your crystal." he said completely ignoring my question. So I pulled out the crystal and handed it to him. He studied it for a few long minutes while I looked at the not so empty shelves. They seemed to be getting more full of stuff by the second. There's crystals, boxes of unknown things, and many other misshapen eggs or things I've never seen before. He gave me back the crystal, said "time" and pushed me out of the store without letting me respond. I looked at the crystal again and it said the same word that the man had said… time.

I wonder if that meant I have the power of time travel. I think about this as I walk, and also notice that the sky is getting dark and I need somewhere to stay. So I walk into another building that says, "Whatever You Want (a restaurant and motel)" which I think is another weird name. As soon as I walk in all I hear is yelling, but I look around and see a bunch of centaurs at tables drinking root beer, but why root beer? I ask the guy at the front (who is also a centaur) what everyone is drinking, and sure enough, it's root beer. "Do I have to pay? Or is it free?" I ask feeling very stupid.

"Well o' course you gotta pay, what do you think this is lad? My names Jerry though, thought you ought to know."

"Ok, how much?" Then I realise that I don't have any money.

"Well, it's fifteen lights fer one night here. It's twenty fer a full days meals. Depends on what yer wantin' though…"

"Ok, maybe five nights."

"That'll be seventy-five lights please."

"One more question." then I paused, thinking about what I was going to ask. He also seemed to be getting nicer, like he was a cousin, not to close in the family though.

"Ask away, I can answer any question you have about money or the building."

"Ok," I decided what I would ask, "how do I get lights." I felt really stupid asking this question.

"Um…" he decides how to answer this question by the look on his face, "well, you might have to get a job. But it seems yer new here, so I'll give you a week free meals an' all, till you can get yer job of course."

"Thank you so much." I feel so relieved that I don't have to live on the streets. Although I would always have a pretty view of the white buildings and the angels flying by. "Where is my room?" I say, trying not to sound too greedy. And, I don't see a way out except for the dirty windows and the door.

"Just touch the brick four to the left side of the top of that trash can… 'k?" he said as he pointed to one of the many full trash cans in the room. He's talking like he's my father. I don't think that he would've said it like that to me if I came in with money bulging out of my pockets. So I walk over and press the brick four to the left of the top of the trash can. Nothing happens. I try again pressing all the bricks around it. Nothing happens. I try again harder, and the wall splits apart right where I'm standing. They make a yelling noise, but then I realise that it's not the walls yelling, it's Jerry."Close it! Close the wall now!" he yells at me. "C'mon close the wall!"

"How?!"

"Just tap the trash can three times!" he yells again. I tap the trash can three times, and it starts to close, but not fast enough. A devil glides into the store and sees me next to the now almost shut brick wall. He has black and dark red skin, fiery eyes, and holes in his wings, I wonder how he flies.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? A little secret that I'm not supposed to see? Well I already saw, it it won't work, trying to hide it to me… I'm a devil you know, I can twist your mind into whatever I want." he says in a real shrill voice that gives me goosebumps. As soon as he was done talking, all of the centaurs in the building (including Jerry) stand up and look at him with a death stare. It's the loudest thing I've ever heard, a bunch of hooves stomping on a wood floor. It hurt my eardrums so bad, I thought I would never hear again. The devil must have been feeling the same way because he backed out of the building and said, "I'm coming back for the boy, you know I will!" and at that, he left.

When I got to my room, it looked exactly like my room did at home, it makes me feel not so home sick. It has the same chiefs pillow on my bed, the same royal blankets, and the same trophy my mom gave me before my grandpa died this year, 2020. The trophy says "Your the best thing that ever happened to me!". I love that trophy a lot.

I try to walk out of my room into the hallway, but I just walk into a room filled with other doors that are probably just other rooms for other people. I put my stuff down, which is only my phone. I doubt that it will work if I'm in a completely different world.

I get down to the bottom of the red and yellow stairs when I hear a noise behind me. "Hi Zandall." I say, still a little scared of his overly calmness.

"Hello, ready to start your training eh?" he says like I volunteered for it.

"I never signed up for that… but when can we start?" even though I didn't know about this, it still sounded cool.

"Right now if you'd like." he said very happy for an old man in a dress robe. "Come right into my room." and he pulls me into the door in the very corner of the room. His room is very dark and misty, but when he snaps his fingers, all the lights turn on. There is a clean table in the middle of the room, an armchair in the corner, and a bathroom to my right.

"What exactly are we training for?" I'm still a little confused because I don't know what we are training for.

"Time travel of course!" he says. So my guess was right, I have special powers. We sit down at the table and begin my training.


End file.
